Kansans can look to Dover on 'design'

Hey, Kansans. Looking for some common-sense in dealing with the critics of evolution on your state school board?

Take a prime lesson in democracy from the folks in Dover, Pa. Go to the polls and kick 'em out.

Kansas obviously woke up on the wrong side of Tuesday, Nov. 8, when the state board of education came up with some rather goofy additions to the state's science standards.

To wit: that evolution is an unguided natural process without any apparent goal or direction; and there is a lack of empirical evidence that the earth once had the necessary chemical makeup to allow life to develop.

In Dover, the now-booted school board thought it necessary to include intelligent design in the biology curriculum with a statement questioning evolution.

They got their comeuppance.

Now it's your turn to be the national laughingstock -- only this time it's an entire state in the barrel.

In Dover's case, testimony in a federal lawsuit brought by parents against the school board showed that outright creationism was at the core of the now-ousted board's intent.

Your state board is claiming a change in the science standards as a victory for free speech in that evolution is open to question and that the members approving those changes were motivated by science. Same gobbledygook -- different location.

In Dover they claimed intelligent design wasn't creationism in new bottles, while you Kansans have to put up with the argument that life is too complex to be explained by evolution.

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Intelligent design in new bottles.

Now as the Dover Area School District tries to get its house in order and science education back on track, it's Kansas' time to grin and bear it, at least until next year's elections.

Hang in there. The religious zealots will keep trying to change the tone of science education in this country, but they have a losing game plan. Common sense will always win out in the end.